Category Archives: Enlisted

It’s 2015, yet we still need to disabuse some of the notion that not all art is made for them. I’m writing in this in the wake of James Poniewozik’s excellent piece today about the “Not For Me” moment in television viewing. He says a lot of things I wish I had said first, but […]

I have this theory about “Enlisted” and why no one watched it through its brief run on FOX. It has nothing to do with the terrible time slot and the out-of-order airings. It has everything to do with the show more than occasionally presenting things most people don’t want to admit exists. It’s not just […]

You’re going to miss “Enlisted” when it’s gone. Make no mistake: I’m not talking to those that will tune in to the season one finale this Sunday. I’m talking to those that will stumble across this at some point in the near future on some streaming service by accident, decide to take a chance because […]

By Ryan McGee|Comments Off on Even if you don’t watch “Enlisted”, you’re not ready for it to be over

If you watch enough TV, then it will inevitably break your heart. Maybe a show you love will kill off a character, or maybe it will go completely off the rails and lose any of the charm you once found in it. Or, as in the potential case of a show like “Enlisted,” not enough […]

Last night’s “Saturday Night Live” parody of “Scandal” was simultaneously funny and instructive. As a fan of both shows, I had reservations when the sketch started: recent “SNL” parodies of programs such as “The Walking Dead” and “Homeland” have missed core aspects of the show so badly that the mockery didn’t land at all. But […]

If “Pete’s Airstream” serves as what “Enlisted” can do when actually digging into the core trauma of life in military service, then “Brothers And Sister” serves as an example of how this show can function on a week-to-week level as a celebration of difference between people of fundamentally different temperaments. That’s an insanely pretentious way […]

By Ryan McGee|Also posted in Reviews|Comments Off on Review: Enlisted, “Brothers And Sister”

It’s always fun to watch shows make “the leap,” even thought what constitutes that leap can be difficult to pinpoint. Usually a show makes “the leap” somewhere in the second season, after a full year of the program as a whole finding its feet and recognizing its strengths while still having oodles of story to […]

By Ryan McGee|Also posted in Reviews|Comments Off on Review: Enlisted, “Pete’s Airstream”

There’s a lot of ways to approach reviewing television shows, but the best ways are always the ones that come most easily to mind. In reality, criticism is about articulating a personal response while employing some modicum of detached perspective. The ratio between the two inevitably varies between show to show and critic to critic, […]

By Ryan McGee|Also posted in Reviews|Comments Off on Review: Why “Enlisted” is the best comedy of this television season

Who’s the Dude?

Ryan McGee, a Boston-based TV critic, presents the latest and greatest in television analysis, reviews, and podcasts.